City Will Pay for New Police-Fire Radio

By a unanimous vote, the City Council this week agreed to pay $354,626 to join an $81-million project that will replace Orange County’s aging public safety communications system.

The new 800-megahertz system will link all police, fire and emergency departments in the county on 61 channels and will be able to connect 10,000 radios. It will replace a deteriorating 23-year-old network that operates on 18 channels and was designed to support only 2,000 radios. The city will pay its share of the project over five years.

City and county officials have been planning the emergency communications network for 10 years. Before the December 1994 bankruptcy, the county and the participating cities worked out a funding deal in which the county agreed to pay for 45% of the costs, with the cities picking up the rest.

But because of losses from the bankruptcy, the county now will cover 39% of the project’s cost, leaving the cities to pay $6.1 million more than they had originally agreed to pay.

In other action, the council voted to adopt a new parking program in Capistrano Villas II and III. Residents there will now have to pay annual fees of $10 for an overnight parking permit for their first car and $25 for any additional cars.

Under the plan, residents also will be required to obtain the permits through their landlords.